PRAYER FOR SAFE TRAVEL

God bless cars with red cellophane tape over brake lights,
padlocks for trunk locks, different color doors, lumber for bumpers,

windshields zigzag fractals those who outlive lightning wear
everywhere under skin, nearly insignia, tributary maps.

Keep them distant from auto impound's concertina wire,
corkscrewed as cartoon pigs' tails or paper streamers from exploding

party favors. Leave their drivers untroubled. When we follow
open-frame trucks with several green, missile-size bottles

upright and wobbling, extinguish our cigarettes, dispel all fear
and static electricity. Let us clearly see the diamond-shaped flammable

symbol, its twist of white lines a burning-bush flicker, its number
3 religious, as promise to spare us while climbing

hills behind dump trucks of jostling rubble and rebar
or vehicle carriers stacked with those spectacular wrecks.